Celebrating fifty years of collaboration with the BBC SO, Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis pairs works by two 20th-century giants, Alban Berg and Sergey Rachmaninov.

Alban Berg wrote his intimate Violin Concerto as a memorial after the tragic death of his friend Alma Mahler’s teenage daughter, Manon. Dedicated ‘To the memory of an angel’, it also became the composer’s own requiem: he died only months later following an infected insect bite. Berg’s lush, hyper-Romantic early Piano Sonata is an emotional macrocosm in miniature. Sir Andrew Davis – the BBC SO’s much-loved conductor laureate – has reimagined its 11 pages of piano score in a new orchestral colouring. Rachmaninov offers a sharp contrast, with the ever-hummable, heartrendingly poignant Vocalise, and the Symphonic Dances – a trio of orchestral showpieces composed in the USA, with sizzle to match.

Programme
Alban Berg – Sonata for Piano, Op 1
Violin Concerto / Vocalise / Symphonic Dances – Sergey Rachmaninov

Performers
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
James Ehnes, violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra